Relating quality and innovation: an exploration

Although the issues of quality and innovation have been dealt with extensively from different perspectives, studies on the relationship between these two concepts are few. This paper presents a brief review of the research done in linking quality and innovation and explores some possible ways of doing so. In particular, it suggests that a common denominator for quality and innovation is customer value and a common platform for them is organisational learning. It also suggests that it is possible to take a quality approach towards the innovation process and an innovation approach towards the quality process. This paper serves as a 'prologue' or 'foreword' to the journal, inviting more discussion on the issue of the relationship between quality and innovation.